Flint's "bike culture" on the rise

View full sizeRyan Garza/MLive.comDan Moilanen, of Fenton, will be starting the Thursday Night Social bike ride through the city of Flint. The group plans to meet at the flat lot on Saginaw Street in downtown Flint every Thursday at 7pm to ride and end at a local bar to socialize.

FLINT, MI--Dan Moilanen is still riding his bike.

"Ever since I was a little kid I’ve enjoyed riding bikes, but really in
the last couple years it’s become one of my favorite things to do," he
said.

Moilanen, 25, of Fenton (although he's looking at a house in downtown Flint) has recently started the organization, Social Cycling Flint to get people in the city interested in biking.

Although he's been riding his entire life, his passion for biking grew while he was living in Austin, TX, where he was part of a large social cycling group. He said Austin is a city that's increasingly becoming known for being progressive and attractive to young people, and said he thinks Flint would benefit from a strong "bike culture" as well.

"People from all over are moving there, and I think that a really big part of that is because they do have a substantial bike culture," he said.

Moilanen's group has only rode once, but the plan is to meet downtown every Thursday at 7 p.m. at the parking lot on the corner of Saginaw Street and Kearsley Street for the Thursday Night Social Ride. From there they take a leisurely ride around the city, ending up at a local bar to have a few drinks and laughs afterward.

"What we would do down there (in Austin), in their social cycling groups, is we’d meet somewhere at a park, and we’d get on our bikes and go at a real slow casual place and explore the city," he said. "That's what I'm trying to do here."

So far, he said he's off to a bit of a slow start. The group only had six people show up for the first ride March 29, and a week later he canceled the ride due to cold weather, but said once the warmer temperatures stick he said he's optimistic it will grow. He's also planning on planning bigger events in addition to the weekly ride.

View full sizeRyan Garza/MLive.comJJ Shaver, of Flint, will be helping lead the Tour of Flint bicycle ride on May 19th, 2012 throughout the city. The group ride, which starts at Good Beans Cafe in Flint, will feature two 15 mile loops along the city and will have a vehicle following for emergencies.

He's not the only one working on making bikes cool in the city. JJ Shaver, 30, of Flint, is working to start an event called Tour of Flint (sometimes referred to as Tour de Flint), an annual ride throughout the city that will show off some of the idiosyncrasies of the city.

The ride is divided into two 15-mile loops, the first going through places like Flint cultural district, Carriage Town, Mott Park as well as through neighborhoods with old attractive houses. After the first loop, beginning and ending at The Good Beans Cafe, the more serious cyclers can opt for a more intense second 15 miles.

But like Moilanen, Shaver said the ride is meant to be a leisurely event aimed at promoting biking.

"It’s a casual ride for anyone. We’re just opening. We’ve got a lot of interest from other places. We’ve got people from Oakland County coming," he said.

The first official ride is scheduled for May 19, but he said the ride has unofficially existed within a group of friends for the last two years.

"It’s been going on for two years, but was only a casual ride with friends. You throw interesting places on the ride, like where you had your first kiss," he said, laughing. "But (the official ride) is not going to be like that, I don't think anyone cares about where I got my first kiss."

Shaver runs his own bike repair shop out of his home, Flint City Bicycles, and said that even though it may seem like biking is suddenly becoming cool in Flint, it's something people have been working hard at for years.

"There’s been a lot of ground work in the past ten years. It seems like it popped up out of nowhere. It’s not a coincidence there are bike lanes," he said.
"We’ve got a lot of the things we need, we’ve got enough students and we’ve got enough infrastructure."

Still, Moilanen said part of the battle of making Flint a bike-friendly town is getting people who don't ride bikes used to the idea.

"Often drivers of cars will down upon cyclists because they're in the way of the road, because they have to slow down or get out of the way. So the more a city has in terms of cyclists, the more accepting of cyclists you’ll be," he said.

But after his time in Austin, he said he's already happy with what he's seen so far in Flint.

"Riding around (Flint), it’s surprisingly more bike-friendly than I thought it was, because Flint already has a lot of dedicated bike lanes," he said.
"I’m looking outside right now on Garland (Street), and there’s a bike lane right there."

Scott Atkinson is an entertainment reporter for the Flint Journal and can be reached at (810) 262-0216 or at satkins1@mlive.com. You can also follow Scott on Facebook or Twitter.